Experiencing wine in Berlin – Everything but mainstream

Wine and Berlin? In the past the connoisseur would likely have smiled sadly and sent the Berlin visitor to the luxury department store KaDeWe. Wine and Berlin is indeed still a relatively new phenomenon but one whose development is all the more exciting for that. From out of a wine desert has risen a city in love with wine, where even the party crowd knows the difference between Riesling and Silvaner and no longer confuses a “Grosses Gewächs” (lit. “great growth“ or “grand cru”) with a garden shrub. In the capital city the country´s wines are very much en vogue.

And Berlin would not be Berlin had it not shaken the dust firmly off the wine scene on the way there. Here, wine drinking is not celebrated as a traditional wine festival or an elite tasting. No pompous science is made out of it, no idle talk, wine is simply enjoyed. The Berlin wine scene prefers it casual and is full of ideas. New wine stores are continually popping up all over city and unusual wine tasting concepts are being tested. Whereas in the past wine bars served at most cheese and perhaps some charcuterie, today the partying goes on into the early hours with music and catfish in miso broth. Several of the new wine locations have become not only the most fashionable places in the Republic but also Michelin-starred restaurants.

The fact that in Berlin of all places a young, dynamic wine-lovers scene has found a huge space in which to grow and experiment is not least due to the special Berlin lifestyle, in which even parts of the establishment refuse to grow up. In the city the club culture is unique and the relatively affordable rents for shops and restaurants are a good basis for new experiments. However, things remain in a constant state of flux. In Berlin nothing lasts forever, especially in the restaurant sector. This also applies to the following list of cool and quirky wine locations in Berlin, where German wines are particularly well presented.